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This death notice came as a shock, but also took me back. Annette Perry, as she was then, was a colleague at Cronulla High School fifty years ago. Later she married another colleague, Lawrie Butterfield. They entered my life again in 1977-78 when I was working in teacher education at Sydney University. Through Annette and Lawrie I became involved in the Balmain Theatre Group at that time. Annette and Lawrie were then living in Rozelle, I in Glebe. As I noted in 2009: “I was fortunate enough to meet [playwright] Alex Buzo on several occasions, most memorably when I played a Rugby League commentator in his The Roy Murphy Show for the Balmain Theatre Group in 1978.” I note that Lawrie went on to be Principal of the Open High School in Randwick: see (2004) Gift of languages on his tongue and world at his feet. According to Annette’s death notice she was aged 75, living in Sunbury, Victoria, when she passed away. There is to be a memorial service in Sydney.

“Wandering Willie” is a blind fiddler who tells a tale-within-a-tale in Sir Walter Scott’s Redgauntlet, a novel I read for English I at Sydney University when I was 16. Looking back at all the places where I have lived, I find the name apt for myself and for my family. As a feat of memory I tried to recall all the places I had lived, none of them all that far from each other, but certainly many. Here is the result of my attempt:

It would take too long to explain why the family moved so much! Add to that mix practice teaching at Cronulla High in 1965, and appointment there 1966-1969, after which my Shire life came to an end, though connections of course continued.

… Marine artist Ron Scobie locates the following painting on Port Hacking. I include it because it reminds me of the house on Willarong Point. Not that we had a yacht, but there was a boat house at the bottom of the garden where I used to sit and read, and in the water just close to shore swim around with scuba and face mask seeing what was what… We rented the house for a year — house sitting really — and it was probably the most beautiful place we ever lived in The Shire. Oddly, Adrian Phoon hales from somewhere rather close…

Adrian Phoon posted the following on Facebook in December: it is indeed almost exactly what I saw from the house on Willarong Point.

I must admit this aspect rather pleases me: “People gathered in Edinburgh and Glasgow to demonstrate against the result and show support for migrants.” Then there is this:

[Scotland’s First Minister] Ms Sturgeon said: “After a campaign that has been characterised in the rest of the UK by fear and hate, my priority in the days, weeks and months ahead will be to act at all times in the best interests of Scotland and in a way that unites, not divides us.

“Let me be clear about this. Whatever happens as a result of this outcome, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will always be Scotland’s closest neighbours and our best friends – nothing will change that.

“But I want to leave no-one in any doubt about this. I am proud of Scotland and how we voted yesterday.

“We proved that we are a modern, outward looking and inclusive country and we said clearly that we do not want to leave the European Union.

“I am determine to do what it takes to make sure these aspirations are realised.”

Amelia Baptie, 36, a mother of twins, said she was “heartbroken and devastated” by the result, as were most of the parents she spoke to in the playground.

She said: “I think if it was about hope on the Leave side then some good could come out of it, but it was about hatred.

“I am upset and worried. I don’t know what has happened to England. They have gone so much to the right and Scotland is being pulled along. My parents live in France and they are very worried now if they can stay, and about their income.”

I worry about some of the types in Europe who have been rejoicing about the UK’s choice – the likes of Le Pen and Wilders.

Another element in the UK vote was generational. This 21 June article by Chris Cook on BBC foreshadowed that.

A new piece of evidence on this has been released by Populus, a pollster that is doing a lot of work for the Remain camp. Their data suggests:

People aged 65 and over are 23% more likely to vote Leave than the average voter. Voters aged 18-24 are 37% more likely to back Remain. Those aged 25-34 are 19% more likely to back Remain than the average voter, the poll suggests

Students are 54% more likely to back Remain than the average person. Graduates are 21% more likely. Meanwhile, people with no formal qualifications are 48% more likely to back Leave…

Markets are stunned. Commenters are shocked. But future historians may view this moment as inevitable…

The debate has cut across the usual divisions of Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat. There are left-wing Brexiteers (who dislike the EU for its lack of democracy and enforced economic austerity) and left-wing Remainers (who like its internationalism); right-wing Remainers (who see the EU as a huge market) and right-wing Brexiteers (who see it as an affront to national sovereignty). There has also been a national dimension: The biggest supporters of Brexit have been the English, and now suddenly the Welsh; the Scots and Irish, for different reasons, have taken the opposite view.

The campaign has highlighted differences too among generations, among regions, and perhaps most importantly among classes and among cultures. Supporters of the “Remain” campaign were disproportionately the young, educated middle classes, who saw the EU as both in their interests and as the political equivalent of motherhood and apple pie. Supporters of Brexit were disproportionately older, less educated, and less wealthy, and think their voices are more likely to be heard in an autonomous national state. Attitudes to immigration from the EU — unrestricted under EU law and running at nearly 200,000 per year — became the shibboleth. Remain saw immigration as a token of enlightenment, economic freedom and cosmopolitanism. The “Leave” campaign saw it as a cause of depressed wages, stressed public services, and long-term danger to national identity. The EU question has become more polarized ideologically in Britain than anywhere else in Europe…

Where indeed will it all end?

Post script

Have been reading heaps of posts. This one stands out: Called back to the present by Scottish physician Bob Leckridge, now living in France.

I watched the UK’s Brexit vote first with interest then with fascination and then with a degree of horror. I was opposed to the original decision to join the EEC, but after forty years membership unpicking the whole thing becomes difficult. Further, the campaign itself and the consequent vote played to and accentuated divides in the UK….

There were no calculators. Cigarettes were puffed on the school oval at lunchtime. One-third of students took French. And the most controversial musical you could study was West Side Story: that was the Higher School Certificate half a century ago.

This year marks 50 years since the first group of students exited the Victorian-era Leaving Certificate and entered the uncharted territory of the HSC after the Wyndham report changed the face of education in NSW.

This year marks the HSC’s 50th year. Since 1967, more than 2.3 million students have successfully completed the HSC and used the skills and knowledge gained to embark on the next stage of life at university, TAFE or work.

The HSC has evolved to reflect a constantly changing world, growing from 29 courses to 104 courses with exams. The first HSC included Sheep Husbandry and Farm Mechanics. The 2016 HSC includes Software Design and Development and Information Processes and Technology.

Students today are enrolled in five English, four maths, five science, eight technology, 63 language and 13 Vocational Educational and Training (VET) courses and 27 Life Skills courses…

Sheep Husbandry was not on offer at Cronulla High School where I as a newly minted English teacher fronted what would be the first 3rd Level (i.e. bottom) English Year 11 class in 1966. So strictly speaking this year it is 49 years since that first HSC, which was sat in 1967.

Sadly this experiment did fail. Now we have something similar to yum cha – a tea house experience with dumplings and steamed buns: Dumplings the cat’s meow.

Ziggy the cat has a short, white coat and a penchant for sitting on a warm laptop computer.

Gravity fascinates him. He will happily push an expensive piece of glassware off a table in order to test its limits.

Named after Ziggy Stardust – for his different coloured eyes – the eight-year-old mog is an old soul, according to owner Steen…

Opened on Monday, the cafe serves up a selection of more than 170 kinds of tea and a long menu of dumplings priced at $5 for three.

“We make dumplings exactly how they’re done in China,” said Steen, best known for his involvement in Wollongong’s Phoenix Theatre. “We go to a company, we hand them our recipe, they make dumplings specifically for us. It is a a group of women sitting around a table in a shop in Hurstville. They’re all wonderful, fun ladies who sit there and make dumplings all day by hand. You can’t make dumplings by machine – they break.”

The cafe is a joint venture by Steen and partner Kevin Caucher.

It was inspired by the couple’s March holiday to Mr Caucher’s Chinese homeland.

The place was packed. I squeezed into a spot at the window bench. And there perhaps is a bit of a worry for the future. The place really is rather small. Full-on yum cha isn’t possible as there are not the numbers to make it work, a problem Steelers also ran into in 2012. Ordering dumplings from the menu means there is a time lag to the table as each order is processed individually; the eating and talking take time too, so tables don’t turn around all that rapidly – and maybe there aren’t quite enough tables. On the other hand the quality and theatricality are drawing people in. I suspect Steen and Kevin Caucher will be run off their feet. I certainly hope so.

Southern Sydney resembled a disaster zone on Wednesday after the most destructive winds recorded in NSW history lifted roofs off houses, brought down power lines and trees and left more than 20,000 homes and businesses without power.

The first of multiple severe thunderstorms hit Sydney just after 10:30am, when a tornado-like event ripped through the Sutherland shire region.

The storm’s brunt was felt in southern beachside suburb of Kurnell, which was lashed with record breaking winds of 213km/h, heavy rain and golf-ball sized hail. A trail of destruction confronted residents and State Emergency Service workers on Wednesday afternoon as they worked to remove debris and cut down trees that had fallen across roads, yards and cars…

7.20pm: The Wollongong City SES unit says it has received 33 calls for help following this afternoon’s storm, mainly in the West Wollongong and Mangerton areas.

7.30pm: A flash storm front bearing harsh winds, hail and heavy rain brought panic to West Wollongong on Sunday afternoon, with the roof of an apartment block being peeled off like a sardine can.

This is what I saw:

My brother in Tasmania rang last night to check I was OK. We agreed that never in either of our memories had we seen a storm around The Shire like yesterday’s. My brother is 80. There have been storms a plenty, of course, but winds over 200kph? Never recorded before in NSW.

Naturally one wonders if this rare severe weather event is climate change related. No-one can say specifically of any one event, but the likelihood of such things happening does seem to point to climate change’s effects. See meteorologist John Allen, writing in 2014…

Folkes had announced plans to hold a rally at Cronulla but was blocked by a Federal Court order on Friday. Holding the barbecue was “a compromise”, he said, confirming that he would not be addressing the crowd but that he could talk to the media.

“Everyone in Australia should have the right of assembly,” said Folkes, who claimed that the tyres on his car had been slashed overnight, “no doubt by the useful idiots on the left”.

The meeting was attended by Danny Nalliah and Rosalie Crestani of the Rise Up Australia Party, Kim Vuga of the Love Australia or Leave It Party, and independent Sergio Redegalli, who become known for his “Say No To The Burqa” murals in Newtown.

“I have studied Islam for the five years and I can tell you that it is impossible to reform,” said Redegalli, who arrived early in a ute on the back of which was a large pig on a spit.

Nalliah addressed the crowd before an Australian flag, leading them in a chant of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”. He then denounced multiculturalism, the media, the United Nations (“United Nonsense”) and the politically correct left.

Yeah, really representative of Cronulla and The Shire –not!

Unfortunately the equally undesirable masked antifascists tried to feed their own attention deficit – but were forcefully swept back to Cronulla Station where a prearranged train waited to take them away to wherever they too had blown in from. I personally wish they had stayed away, or held a rally in Belmore Park in Sydney, or anywhere else many kilometres from Cronulla Beach.

A 58-year-old man from Warilla, south of Wollongong, was arrested for offensive behaviour and a 25-year-old man from Seaforth was arrested for breaching the peace.

A police spokeswoman could not confirm whether the two men were part of the anti-Islam or anti-racism groups.

In a volatile and confusing situation, members of the Antifa crowd were being instructed to “mob up”, running from one side of the park to the other in an apparent effort to confuse police about their intentions.

I can sympathise with my cousin’s son who would have been 13 and living not far from Cronulla back in 2005. My cousin still lives in the Shire:

If I see one more Cronulla Riots think piece I’m quitting the internet forever.

Sorry Harrison! Meanwhile the “patriots” will have to cope with this – which I disagree with by the way, opposed as I am to capital punishment.

An Islamic scholar has called for the reintroduction of the death penalty in Australia for anyone who is convicted of committing an act of murder or terrorism that causes the loss of human life.

Dr Hassan Majzoub, who has a PhD in Islamic studies, said murder in any form including terrorism is one of the most serious crimes in Islam and the penalty is death.

The respected Imam, who studied in Syria and Saudi Arabia, is speaking out because he wants the media to help the Muslim community get the message across that it is unacceptable for such crimes to be committed, let alone in the name of any religion…

Dr Majzoub’s comments have been backed by the former Mufti of Australia Sheikh Taj din al-Hilali who said the divine faiths call for the preservation of human life, prohibit murder and regard the murder of a person as a murder of humanity.

“I believe that we must implement strong legal deterrents against any person who holds murderous terrorist intents. Murder should have the strongest legal deterrents and a sentence of execution would be such a deterrent to stop murder which seems to be increasing,” said Sheikh al-Hilali.

Founder of the Islamic Friendship Association Keysar Trad said he agreed that the strongest possible deterrent should be in force against murder and terrorism.

Sydney man Zak Mallah was the first person charged with a terrorism offence after Australia ramped up its terrorism laws in the wake of the the September 11 attacks.

Mallah was just 19 at the time and was acquitted of the terrorism charges. He was convicted of threatening an ASIO officer and served a jail term.

He told Fairfax Media that he agreed with Dr Majzoub about the death penalty should applying to those convicted of carrying out murders and terrorist attacks. But he doesn’t believe that it would be deterrent because it could be taken as a badge of honour by ISIS that they are now going to be martyred.

But he said he strongly disagreed with condemning a convicted minor to death row. Instead he believes minors should be given the chance to be rehabilitated while in jail…

And now we have the anniversary of the Lindt Cafe siege coming up. I posted Sydney siege on the day:

I note also Ray Christison, a cousin, published this on Facebook:

I have decided on a one-strike policy in relation to hate speech. I will report any racist comment or comments aimed at inciting hatred between or against religious groups, including reposts from “patriotic” or hate pages. I will also unfriend the person who has posted such comment. This is my personal choice. ‪#‎illridewithyou‬

That’s a set of Sydney Hizb ut-Tahrir spokespeople. I have actually met the one in the middle. For more on that see my posts under Wassim and also God is diminished and the Prophet traduced…, my response to the Paris outrage. My view is that outlawing this group is rather like the idea of outlawing the Communists in the 1950s – not exactly a good idea. You want even more radicalisation? Simple: ban them. Sure, watch them – you have to. Really then I have agreed with the Grand Mufti:

…The strong comments by the Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammed come amid other signs of a serious breakdown in relations between the Abbott government and large elements of Australia’s Muslim communities, ahead of the expected announcement of new security legislation on Monday.

Abbott criticised the grand mufti on the Bolt Report last Sunday for suggesting it would be a political mistake to ban the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying his comments were “wrong-headed” and unhelpful.

Mohammed was interviewed on Friday for the online TV program, Spot Light, run by the Islamic production company OnePath Network.

Asked if he had any advice for the prime minister, the mufti said: “I respect the presence of Tony Abbott as a political leader of his party and I respect the Australian community’s choice in electing him.

“I personally elected him in the previous elections. But believe me, I will not repeat this mistake again,” he said….

Meanwhile there was a grinning Fred Nile in the front rows at that protest meeting in Penrith. Figures…

Just for the record: Islam in Australia is a minority religious affiliation. According to the 2011 census, 476,291 people, or 2.2% of the total Australian population, were Muslims. The number the Tele front page referred to today was “thousands” – I seem to recall it was 4000, of whom 400 had a top priority. Hizb ut-Tahrir apparently has about 300 members.

I was born and bred in The Shire. My skin cancers bear witness to time spent on Cronulla’s beaches. My first teaching appointment was Cronulla High School. It was while teaching there in the second half of the 1960s that I first encountered and embraced the idea of pluralism, which in varying iterations has stayed with me ever since as an idea that has the advantage of corresponding with how the world actually is. No surprise then that in later years as my experience widened I embraced the Australian multiculturalism that evolved particularly in the Whitlam and Fraser years. If you want to “reclaim” something, then reclaim that.

Australia does not need reclaiming. It does not need a “Freedom Party”. At this point it certainly could do without inflammatory self-appointed “patriots” attempting to get attention through the tenth anniversary of Cronulla’s saddest days. I agree totally with today’s Herald editorial.

For all the Cronulla community’s efforts to welcome all Australians to the beach lifestyle, the riots and ensuing race-based generalisations made many young men and women feel they did not belong to Australia and that Australia did not belong to them. Preventing the alienation of Australians of Middle Eastern background remains the key to fighting home-grown terrorism – and the Cronulla riots are an ugly reminder of what not to do to promote inclusion.

This weekend some Australians will again seek to reclaim our nation as a monocultural throwback under the banner of “Aussie pride”. They will laud the Cronulla riots as a glorious rebellion. Such an inflammatory world view must be countered. The Cronulla riots involved criminal activity fuelled by ineffective parenting, panic merchants, teenage testosterone, alcohol abuse and, yes, racism among a small minority of Australians of both Anglo-Celtic and Middle Eastern background.

Here are twenty-five sometimes passionate posts written during the Cronulla affair of December 2005. I see this period as something of a watershed for Australian multiculturalism. There will be some links that are no longer viable after two years. See also Four Corners: Riot and Revenge (March 2006).

For example:

The word “bogan” does come to mind. A mob is a mob is a mob — whether it’s 5,000 self-styled “Aussies” or 30 to 50 Aussie “Lebs”. And racism, whatever the provocation, really really sucks big time. That includes the racist talk and actions of the young hoons who bring their families, culture and religion into disrepute by, for example, inexcusably attacking lifesavers, as well as the intellectually challenged senders of seditious (yes, they are) emails and text messages that encourage scenes like that on the left.

Seems, doesn’t it, that attacking ambulance officers is OK — as long as you are a tanked-up Aussie, of course.

Later

Look at those raised arms and imagine swastika flags… Yes, the Aussies really worried me that day, and I am sure my father would have seen the imagery with considerable disquiet. He would also recall the New Guard of the 1930s, for whom he had no respect whatsoever. This is not patriotism: this is mindless jingoism and tribalism. Nor is it what the bulk of Cronulla-ites had in mind when that day began. Unfortunately, neo-Nazis and sheer bogans from as far away as Penrith and Campbelltown (not a rumour — I have read their blogs) joined in the general anarchy. I have no more time for them than I have for the hoons who have been wrecking enjoyment at the beach, some of whom attacked those lifesavers. But that’s OK, isn’t it: “our” bogans attack ambos and attempt to kill innocent bystanders, no questions asked…

I wouldn’t have touched most of this crowd with a barge-pole personally, and THAT is a patriotic point of view in my opinion. I am the citizen of a country that is a bit more grown-up than the one some of these people seem to want….

Here in Surry Hills’s “Little Lebanon” all is quiet. Except for the traffic. There are Lebs and Lebs of course. Our state Governor, Marie Bashir is a Leb — or an Aussie. Depends how you look at it.

By 1958 the western part of The Shire had already experienced becoming a home for what quite recently, at that time, were seen as “undesirables” from the Mediterranean — my grandmother was quite vocal on that — not to mention many families from the “slums” of Surry Hills and Glebe — our neighbours in Vermont Street and nearby streets.

And The Shire survived.

Darrin has a right to his views, and to stand for election. What annoys me is that the Herald is palming off what I would regard as a local nutter as if he represented what The Shire is all about in 2008. He doesn’t, and I dare say the election results will reflect that.

This is not to say that The Shire does not have environmental, development and population concerns. I am sure it does, and some of those I would no doubt share if I still lived there. It’s one of the few places in Australia with a nuclear issue in their back yards, for example — the Lucas Heights reactor.

Also worth noting that those hoping to cash in on the current Islam=terror meme at Cronulla tomorrow are not from the Shire. They are blow-ins that The Shire doesn’t want.

Wollongong people going about their daily lives

It is well worth reading Waleed Aly today. I know enough Eastern and Western history to know that what he says is true.

Sorry, but I just can’t quite get over the irony. Unless I have this completely mistaken, Tony Abbott just called for both a Reformation and a revolution “within Islam”. This is, of course, perhaps the most well-worn and ill-informed cliche of Western discourse on Islam – the kind of thing people like to say when they want to sound serious but know almost exactly nothing about Islam, Muslim societies, or indeed the Reformation.

But it takes on a special instructive quality coming from Abbott: a self-described conservative Catholic. If that description has an antonym, it’s something like a revolutionary Protestant: pro-Reformation, pro-revolution. And yet here is our former prime minister, arguing against his very self.

Unless, of course, he isn’t because when it comes to Islam, all the normal rules are suspended. Including, it seems, whatever rules require that the words we use are meant to have meaning. So much could be said here. Of how Islam’s own version of the Reformation already occurred in the 18th century. Of how this episode gave birth to Wahhabism, with its disdain for traditional religion and its austere scripturalism. Of how that finally became expressed in the nation state of Saudi Arabia. Of how it combined with the anti-colonial movement of Islamism – self-consciously a reform movement, by the way – to create (eventually) al-Qaeda and through it Islamic State…

There are so many issues to explore, and we must do so. But not in one post! Back in 2005 I was much encouraged by Amin Maalouf’s little book On Identity, aka In the Name of Identity. Surely it remains essential reading today.

What determines a person’s affiliation to a given group is essentially the influence of others: the influence of those about him — relatives, fellow-countrymen, co-religionists — who try to make him one of them; together with the influence of those on the other side, who do their best to exclude him. Each one of us has to make his way while choosing between the paths that are urged upon him and those that are forbidden or strewn with obstacles. He is not himself from the outset; nor does he just “grow aware” of what he is; hebecomes what he is. He doesn’t merely “grow aware” of his identity; he acquires it step by step.

[…]

But it is just as necessary to emphasize that identity is also singular, something that we experience as a complete whole. A person’s identity is not an assemblage of separate affiliations, nor a kind of loose patchwork; it is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.

People often see themselves in terms of whichever one of their allegiances is most under attack. And sometimes, when a person doesn’t have the strength to defend that allegiance, he hides it. Then it remains buried deep down in the dark, awaiting its revenge. But whether he accepts or conceals it, proclaims it discreetly or flaunts it, it is with that allegiance that the person concerned identifies. And then, whether it relates to color, religion, language or class, it invades the person’s whole identity. Other people who share the same allegiance sympathize; they all gather together, join forces, encourage one another, challenge “the other side.” For them, “asserting their identity” inevitably becomes an act of courage, of liberation.

In the midst of any community that has been wounded agitators naturally arise… The scene is now set and the war can begin. Whatever happens “the others” will have deserved it.

[…]

What we conveniently call “murderous folly” is the propensity of our fellow-creatures to turn into butchers when they suspect that their “tribe” is being threatened. The emotions of fear or insecurity don’t always obey rational considerations. They may be exaggerated or even paranoid; but once a whole population is afraid, we are dealing with the reality of the fear rather than the reality of the threat.

Such complex problems, Maalouf is careful to point out, merit only befittingly nuanced solutions:

I no more believe in simplistic solutions than I do in simplistic identities. The world is a complex machine that can’t be dismantled with a screwdriver. But that shouldn’t prevent us from observing, from trying to understand, from discussing, and sometimes suggesting a subject for reflection.

That’s precisely what Maalouf goes on to do in the remainder of the wholly excellent, urgently relevant In the Name of Identity.

1968-ers, not 1969! Paul Kelly (class of 68 Cronulla High and former Deputy Surveyor–General of New South Wales, among other distinctions) collected me at Sutherland Station and took me to this place in Gymea.

Joining us were Alan Andrews, from the Maths Department at Cronulla in the 60s and also an ongoing Rugby League person of some note. Two other former students also came – Colin Glendinning, a medical doctor, and Paul Weirick, a retired engineer.

Paul Kelly brought some interesting photos and he and others also had some great anecdotes, some of them things I had forgotten.

I walked back to Gymea Station afterwards, not having walked through Gymea for over 40 years!

As well as showing the derailed coal train that excellent photo from the Mercury shows the single track leading to the Clifton/Scarborough tunnel and the proximity of the wonderful new road bridge, built because the road kept falling into the water…

My Dad would have been ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD today!

That’s him in the centre in the suit some time in the early 1970s.

My twin cousins Robert and James Heard (born 1954) are on his right. On his left my mother Jean (1911-1996), my Aunt Fay (d. October 2011) and her husband, my Uncle Neil (b. 1924).

In front is my Aunt Beth (d. 2007). On her right my cousin Janine, on her left Lloyd – children of Neil and Fay.

Not in this group are Roy and Kay, about whom I am especially thinking this week.

There were more Christisons there – including my surviving uncle, Neil, who looks well at 87 – than I have seen in decades. My cousin Ray wasn’t there, being at the time (or close to it) passing through Braefield, of all places, but he sent me this via Facebook.

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